Survive and Thrive in the Current Economic Climate.

This meeting was a joint initiative involving the Tayside Councils, Scottish Enterprise and Business Gateway Network.

Gary McEwan of Business Gateway said that we are living in unprecedented times. He suggested that painful re-balancing needs to happen. Business' may feel that they are victims but they are also the answer. We can expect further contractions in the business world, talked down by the media.

He debated possible tactics in the circumstances. Will you be able to identify genuine opportunities, guard against complacency and do not over estimate the need to preserve customer loyalty. He felt that inaction on behalf of business owners, may be fatal and stressed that they should not become too inward looking.
He suggested seven areas to watch:

1. Focus on your customers. Here he cited a visit his company had with their IT supplier. What seemed like a genuine customer service call turned out to be a genuinely concerned enquiry as to what it would take for a competitor to take the business off him.
2. Control your cash and insist on being paid. The loudest tend to get paid.
3. Cut out all kinds of waste in business.
4. Ensure you maintain stability within your staff.
5. Keep focussed on your market and keep yourself in front of your customer.
6. Tune out negativity and tune into opportunity.
7. Align yourself with those who have scars. (He suggested that he would rather go into a battle with soldiers scarred from previous encounters).
Seek advice from professionals.

John Dowie, Business Manager of the Royal Bank of Scotland was the second speaker. He said keep tabs on the financial health of your business. Annual accounts can be nine or ten months out of date yet they can be the first indication of a business's results. It is more important now to have management accounts so that you can keep track on a month to month basis. This means reducing profit and loss accounts with budgets and lists of aged debtors and creditors.

Cash flow forecasts should identify fixed and variable costs while taking account of seasonal influences on sales. Regular review and adjust where necessary.

Profit is sanity.
1. Maintain profit margins, review your products, be aware of your margins, do not reduce prices just to win new business. Give full consideration when taking on new business.
2. Review your overheads.
3. Regularly review your profit margins.
Government measures such as the working capital scheme will provide help to business. Details are only now emerging but should be good news for business.

Christine McTavish of Chartered Accounts Henderson Loggie gave pointers that might help businesses identify things going wrong.

Are customers taking longer to pay you?
* Is your stock level increasing?
* Is your bank balance reducing?
* Are you reliant on too few customers?

What can you do?
* Adopt better debt collection.
* Give consideration to sale or merger.
*Get formal debt arrangement with creditors.
*Be wary about falling foul of Employment Law.

Identify what has caused the problem.
* Loss of markets.
* Bad debts.
* Lack of working capital.
* Management failure.